You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
-- Max Ehrmann - Desiderata

Thursday, January 22, 2009

We had a visit with our social worker today (who is awesome!) and gave her the updated documents needed to file the I800a with the US government. We have a couple of little details that we need to take care of and send to her and then she will file our application. Then we wait-not so patiently for our approval. This can take up to 90 days but we are hoping for sooner. Feels kind of good to be done gathering all the documents we had to update but now all we can do is wait. We waited three years already I guess I can hold out a few more months! And for those of you that don't know, Drew won't be able to come to China with me but my wonderful Dad has offered to travel with me and keep me sane throughout the surely emotional trip. I am so happy I won't be travelling alone.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

I think I have the problem of not being able to post comments figured out! Too bad I deleted my cute Lotus flowers design because now I don't think that was the issue. Anyway people should be able to post now. Jaime try it out and let me know.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

I found some photos of the SWI(Social Welfare Institute) that Makenna may or may not be living in right now. I called our adoption agency and our coordinator is contacting the CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs) to find out if she is in foster care or at the SWI. She also said she would try to get updated measurements (height/weight etc.) if she can. I would love to find out how big she is and get some updated photos if possible.

Friday, January 9, 2009

Well things are moving along for our update. As many of you know some of our paperwork expired during our three year wait. We now have to apply for a different government approval than when we applied the first time. In hindsight I wish we would have kept everything current but many times things seemed so uncertain. We have all the paperwork together and our social worker will be coming here on the 22cnd to do a home study update and then send in our application. This is where our timeframe to travel is up in the air. It really depends on how long they take to process our application. In the recent past it has been taking several months because it is a new process. I have heard some encouraging news that more staff has been hired and trained and things are going more smoothly. I really have to hope that things will go quickly because we want to bring her home as soon as possible! Thanks for everyone's sweet comments it is so encouraging to know so many people care and are excited for us.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Ok I am totally new at this blog thing but I will try to figure it out so that people I care about can follow this process. On December 29 we received a referral for a baby girl in China. To make an extremely long story short we started the process to adopt over 3 years ago. When the process that was supposed to take 6-8 months had stretched beyond a year we started to worry. We had all but given up hope that it would happen for us when Makenna showed up! Our baby is Fu Yan Hao and her birthday is February 9, 2008. She is currently in the Fuzhou SWI in Jiangxi province. I will keep this blog updated about when we travel to bring her home and all the other details. We are thrilled beyond belief and can't wait to hold her in our arms.